mutually assured destruction | mina

[Deleted]

i  a m  m y  o w n.

APRIL 2025

THE HEADY THRUM OF CLUB INDIGO SHOULD have made Tia feel physically sick, but it didn't. She was too focused, her handbag clutched so far under her arm that she might as well have been cradling it. Mina was not Tia's favourite person in the world. She wasn't even top five. She was mean and a drunk and Tia was never sure whether or not she was lying. It was a confusing dynamic, but ever since she'd first encountered Mina at Hogwarts, she'd been drawn in to the strange, disastrous girls orbit. Especially when she was having a crisis.

Tia wasn't even sure they were friends, but she felt better when she saw her. Shimmering under the blue and purple strobe lights. "Hey!" She called over the din, her thoughts scrambled by Edrik and Trixie and her job. "I need a drink..." Her nostrils flared and she dove an arm in to her back, right up to the elbow, and from its bottomless depths she brought out six glass phials bound by a leather strap. "... like right now." She finished, holding out her gift, but in a tight and expectant fist. Tia brought hangover cures and tweaked, long-lasting Pepper-Up concoctions to test on Mina. 

mina pandora oliveira

NEVERLAND at ADOXOGRAPHY 2.0!

[mina pandora oliveira]

▲

There was no such thing as making a mistake while out on the town. Ever. Mina had gone out a lot in her life, and drank a lot, and done a lot of other things (mostly illegal), but she had never seen any individual night as a mistake. At least not from the collective that she remembered. There were certainly a lot more these days that she forgot than when she had started her partying phase. The nights out had slowed down over the last six months or so, and she had even considered sobering up for a short period of time. That clearly hadn’t worked though, because she was back in Club Indigo partying her drunk butt off like nothing had ever happened. Initially she didn’t want to drink her grief of her brother’s death away, but that had changed, and here she was doing just that. Keeping it to weekends only made it a lot easier, and having more sway at work meant she could keep her shifts to the weekdays now. That meant being able to do whatever she pleased Friday and Saturday nights, just like normal working people.

The only mistake Mina had made tonight was that she hadn’t pre-gamed properly and she was already tipping into fuzzy territory. She didn’t even have her normal gang of friends with her. Rue specifically was busy doing something else, which Mina interpreted as developing a new potion, so the Oliveira girl made her way to Club Indigo to get the night started and maybe find some interesting characters along the way. It was like an adventure! One filled with loud music, a lot of dancing, endless drinks, and definitely no mistakes.

Thankfully it didn’t take long for a familiar face to appear in the flashing lights of the club. Mina was already moving towards Tia Finch, her favorite little plaything, before she came to the realization that she was actually being invited by the girl to drink together. What in Merlin’s scraggly beard was Tia drinking to turn to Mina for fun, and where could they get more of it? Grinning at the girl, Mina looped her arm through Tia’s and started to turn towards the bar, “Well then my little birdie, let’s go get some drinks!”

@tia ● 379 ● Embracing Nocturnal Damnation by Shadow Of Intent

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[Deleted]

i  a m  m y  o w n.

APRIL 2025

THE BOLD SURPRISE ON MINA'S PALE, DRAWN face made Tia shift uncomfortably. She didn't like the way it rippled across her features. Like she was calculating some incredibly complex problem and coming up with a very sinister answer. Tia almost turned around, but she'd already offered her currency and that didn't come for free. It was the principle that kept her, not the irritating thoughts meddling in her brain. Definitely not.

"Yes," She said firmly, professionally. "Let's do that." And she followed Mina through the throngs of dancing, sweating bodies, her arms held so close to her body that she looked bound. She was too sober to appreciate the beat, or whatever magic possessed those on the dance floor, but she was also desperate. The bar was sticky when they got there, Tia touching the shining top briefly before pulling back as if it burned.

"Is this place always so disgusting?!?" Tia yelled, leaning closer to Mina to be heard, but she looked hypnotised by the bartender. With a sigh, she bumped her shoulder with Mina's. "Get me something strong." She told her, because she had no intention of paying. Mina owed her for the potions and Tia was a practical businesswoman. 

mina pandora oliveira

NEVERLAND at ADOXOGRAPHY 2.0!

[mina pandora oliveira]

▲

Tia was always so stiff and proper that it made Mina giggle externally whenever she saw the girl. Nothing had changed since their school days, and if anything, Tia was worse than she used to be. But only because she had an image to uphold, or something. Mina had seen that happen with plenty of her former classmates over the last few years, and it disappointed her. All of the fun loving people were turning aside to focus on their jobs or start families. Starting families barely into their twenties! What sort of madness was that? Her only obligations were to go to work during the week and get completely shit-faced on the weekends. Anything else that happened, happened.

Tonight, though, she finally had the chance to unravel Tia. To get her talking earnestly and see what the girl really thought of, under her hardened, stony exterior. “When you’re bombed, you really don’t care about that sort of thing,” Mina said honestly. This place was pretty nice considering where she normally found herself at the end of the night. And that wasn’t always slumped against a wall in a back alley half-asleep. She did that a lot less these days.

Tia gave her permission to choose drinks, and Mina went right to business, catching the bartender’s eye with a flourish of her hand, and within a minute they had two whiskey sours. “Ever had one of these?” Mina asked as she forced the glass into Tia’s hands. “Drink enough of them and you won’t care what’s strong and what isn’t.” Though she had a feeling the whiskey in the drink would be enough for Tia. It certainly had been when Mina first had one.

“There’s no way you’re here all by yourself, Tia. Have any other little friends wandering around that can join us?” she asked as she leaned up against the bar, doing her best to let her eyes bore into the younger girl’s. Mina loved to tease her, and having her in the club like this was like throwing her into a shark tank with a bucket of chum. Where Mina was the shark.

@tia ● 356 ● Black Bear by Whitechapel

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[Deleted]

i  a m  m y  o w n.

APRIL 2025

ONE LOOK AT MINA DID NOT PUT TIA AT EASE. She looked so at home among the boozers that it just made Tia feel more out of place, she held her handbag tighter and began overthinking her decision to come at all. But, the exchange had been made, and though Tia was a coward, she was also a very keen businesswoman. She'd stay for one drink, she told herself. And then she would leave. The thought alone made her feel instantly better.

"Well, then get me bombed." She found herself saying, avoiding the sticky counter and the sweaty bodies behind her. It was like being trapped between a rock and a hard place, except far grosser. And a glass was suddenly pushed in to her hand. The outside ice cold and wet from condensation - at least she hoped so. She stared at the liquid suspiciously, and then at Mina with the same searing stare. She gave a cautionary sniff. "Whiskey and...?" She asked, because her father had always loved a whiskey on the rocks, with chunks of ice that clinked around in a small glass. But, then she remember why she was there and instead of giving it back to Mina she took a hearty sip.

It burned sweetly at the back of her throat, and Tia's face screwed up momentarily. "It's..." She felt like a traitor to say so. "It's actually not terrible." It was a bit sour for her taste, but she'd definitely had worse. She took another sip. But, it did nothing to stop Mina's attention. Tia sat back, nursing her glass in her lap as she shook her head firmly. "Absolutely not." She snapped, her eyes scanning across the sea of bodies. "I do not know anybody here." She said with undiluted judgement. "What about you?" Tia said, firing the question back like it was a bullet. "I came here to find you, but you're here alone." With pursed lips, Tia tilted her head and took another drink, this time expectant.

mina pandora oliveira

NEVERLAND at ADOXOGRAPHY 2.0!

[mina pandora oliveira]

▲

Tia was one surprise after another tonight! If she didn’t already know that the girl had a twin, she probably would have been playing twenty questions right about now in an attempt to figure out what happened to the old Tia and where this new one had come from. Allowing Mina to get her trashed was like a dream come true for the Oliveira girl! Starting with the whiskey sour was perfect too, because they were easy to drink over and over again. Soon enough here they would be ten drinks in and wondering where the night would take them next.

She narrowed her eyes at Tia as the girl took a sip of her drink, shrugging at the second ingredient in the whiskey sour. “Sour? No idea what it is but it’s damn good,” she laughed, matching Tia’s sip with one of her own. It ended up as more of a gulp, the burn adding to her already decent buzz she had accrued in the last hour or so. She would end up in a much better place in a few hours than Tia would be. Playing the responsible one for once would be a change of pace, assuming her friend couldn’t hold her liquor at all. “See? It’s a great starter for the night.”

Watching Tia take in the crowd that was most definitely not her sort, Mina already knew the answer to her question before the girl responded. She doubted that everyone in the club was a stranger. There were enough young witches and wizards that frequented Club Indigo, on top of the muggle crowd that found their way in on occasion. With how crowded it was tonight, there were a million opportunities to run into someone that one of them might now. Mina more so than her companion. “Aww that’s sweet. How’d you know this was my local haunt? Wait, don’t tell me you followed me all the way from work? You have to be careful Ms. Finch, there are a lot of sketchy characters around these days…” Mina winked at the girl, before taking another sip of her drink. She shook her glass around in her hand, watching the ice clink against the sides before continuing, “Well I’m not by myself anymore. So thank you for that.”

@tia ● 382 ● Drive by Pale Waves

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0